July is getting near, so it must be time to think about this again. Last year it all came down to being decided by 7th place in the sprint on the Champs Elysees: what can you do to make it even closer this time around?

Team of exactly eight riders (a change from last year, reflecting the UCI rule change) If you pick someone who is not riding, I'll replace him with the next cheapest of his team, or the next cheapest in the race if there is not one in his team. (but if you get your entry in in good time, I'll do my best to alert you to it rather than do that)

Budget Budget will be 4000 points, the same as before, so more points per rider than previously. If you are over budget, I'll take out the cheapest rider who can be replaced with a cheaper member of his team that will bring you into budget, or the next cheapest in the race if there is not one in his team (first in alphabetical order if two or more meet that definition) (but see note above about my willingness to help if you don't leave it too late).

Please send the team with names formatted as per CQ. (Surname[space]Forename and nothing else: Spanish/Portuguese names need particular care, as do accents or other diacritics) Please do not include riders' teams and prices in your PM. It makes an enormous difference to the efficiency of adding teams. If you use the dropbox spreadsheet it will be a simple copy and paste job for me.

I have lodged my team with the first person to submit a team.

DeadlineWhen they start pedalling in Noirmoutier, at 11:00 local time on 7 July.

ScoringPoints issued according to the points tables of CQ (column GT1). Note there are no points issued for the young rider category. As CQ seems rather unstable at present, it is also on the Team selector spreadsheet.

Entries (to be updated once a day unless real life interferes. If your name is absent 24 hours after you send in your team, get on my case)As of 23:30 (BST) Friday 6th:About 11 hours to goAmisVeloArmchair_CyclistBicycleBoyBikeRacer33BluesInTheBottleBminchowCarlo_AlgatrensigComodoroDel1962Evans_is_the_BestFaunieraGoogolplexGotlandGPBlancoHakkie2JustSomeGuyKazistutaKoroninLeadbellyLosBrolinMellow_VeloMinessaNathanptzNorthAmericanScumRote_LaterneRuvu75SafeBetSalvaraniScrool07SearchShalgoSportingNonsenseSquireThePirate81TigerionTotalPackageVladimirYellow_Knight

Good news: all teams bar one are now confirmed, and the final one (Sky) seems fixed according to speculation.

Bad news: CQ didn't download the update yesterday (it normally goes up late afternoon on a Monday) to establish the prices, and late last night and this morning I was getting a "SQL Server does not exist or access denied" message. If the download is not in place by 8pm (UK time) this evening, I'll use the prices as of 24th June instead (they are the prices currently on the team selection spreadsheet).

CQ recovered this morning, but still hadn't uploaded the weekly spreadsheet that we see normally see on a Monday by about 8:30 pm (BST) when it went offline again, so the game will run on the basis of the 24th June data. Good news if you want to select someone who did well in their National Championship last weekend, but probably not much price change for most riders. But please use the team selection spreadsheet to be sure you are spending within budget.

A few teams in already: I'll cobble one together to send to Comodoro (the first to submit a team) shortly.

36: PORTE Richie34: CAVENDISH Mark, QUINTANA ROJAS Nairo Alexander27: ROLLAND Pierre21: GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando20: GAUDU David17: KANGERT Tanel12: SUTHERLAND Rory11: KRUIJSWIJK Steven, MARTIN DanielI could have made the Collective Wisdom slightly more popular than it is, but giving the last spot to Sutherland instead of Kruijswijk, but opted for the Dutchman instead in order to make a more realistic spending of the budget, while nominating Dan Martin would have been overbudget.

I wouldn't have thought that Gaudu is so popular. In fact, that's the rider in my team I have least expectations but I'll rather cheer for a stage top ten and GC top 20 for him than two stage top fives for Cavendish.Now hoping for a Fuglsang podium and a surprising performance by Kochetkov.

I wouldn't have thought that Gaudu is so popular. In fact, that's the rider in my team I have least expectations but I'll rather cheer for a stage top ten and GC top 20 for him than two stage top fives for Cavendish.Now hoping for a Fuglsang podium and a surprising performance by Kochetkov.

More a case of nobody else in the 150-250 point bracket likely to get many points.

Yellow pointsThis is the main classification. It includes the green points, but also points for GC position, and the mountain and points classifications (which get points as per a stage), and 20 points for every finishing. It is best read a the standings if the race were to finish here and know: it becomes steadily more relevant as the race goes on, and can see dramatic changes after important stages.

Riders' GC positions, and so most of these points, are virtually the same as the stage, so I won't bother posting them.

Yellow pointsSo this always needs a bit of explaining for those who are new to the game on stage 2. Geraint Thomas didn't actually gain any real points today, but at the end of yesterday he was 15th in GC, so he, and the teams that selected him, were credited with 100 provisional points for GC position; now he sits in 7th, and if he is still there in Paris it will be worth 230 points. So his projected points have increased by 130. Equally Laporte was 6th on GC (260pts) and 7th in the points classification (5 pts) yesterday, along with his 15 points (that can't be lost) for coming 5th yesterday: Josedin had 280 points from him yesterday. But now he is out of the top ten in the points classification (so zero points there), and has dropped to 57th in GC (getting the minimum 20 points that all finishers get); add in the 15 place points (green points) from yesterday and he is now only worth 35 points to poor Josedin, so he has a daily loss of 245 points.

Far more riders than this gained or lost points: I only include those who were selected by at least one team for our game, and not those with a small amount of change. The threshold for that will vary each day.

There will be days like today when there are huge changes: there will be other days when most teams' scores don't change at all. And of course if the riders can have negative day scores, so can teams. And daily winners can be undeserved flukes.

StandingsAlthough Gaviria and Kittel lost a fair few points today, they are still among the top scoring riders in the game at the moment, and are the highest that anyone has selected, so Total Package's unique pairing of them remains at the top. Bminchow is new in the top ten as, rather more dramatically with the day's biggest jump, 17 places.

ASO did change the stage 2 standings late last evening, notably docking Kittel 4:40 as he was not with the peloton at the 3km marker, knocking him from 4th in GC to 138th or so. He would therefore lose 300 points, and the current standings would be very different.

But I will not be incorporating these changes in the stage 2 results because:a: PCS, which I copy and paste into the spreadsheet, still hasn't updated;b: I need to get to work;c: the table will be very different at the end of stage 3, so it doesn't matter too much what it will have changed from.

StandingsScores turned around almost entirely: there are 8 teams who moved either up or down by 20 or more places, Safe Bet going 27 places in the right direction. The top 3 were respectively 2nd, 5th and 6th yesterday, but otherwise on ly one of yesterday's top ten remains(Bminchow). The 4 Geraint Thomas teams (who probably were expecting to reap the first of several yellow jersey bonuses today: I did at least) are all in the top 5, but Search, with most of his points coming from Porte, Gaviria and Jungels, is ahead of most of us.

Jungels loses 30 points purely on accumulated finishing positions, but otherwise the main negative change was Zakarin's misfortune. We see the first of our selected riders DNFing in g Domont, with the loss of 20 points. Of course, when riders move down the GC, others move up to replace them and take their projected points, so riders gain points today while not obviously havins improved their race position or placing highly today.

Semir maintains that impressive lead (courtesy of Thomas, Gaviria, Porte and Fuglsang), and the top 5 remain intact, with 4th and 5th swapping. Zakarin and Jungels based teams fall out of the top ten, leaving space for North American Scum, Mellow Velo and Salvarani, and the rise of the day is shared by the as yet unseparable teams of Evans is the Best and Yellow Knight.

Search closes the gap to the leader pretty dramatically, while Josedin overtakes most of the Geraint Thomas teams. Rote Laterne, and, rather less dramatically, Mellow Velo also move the right way among the top ten, which is joined by Comodoro and Bicycle Boy. Comodoro's 6 place jump is impressive, but beaten by Just Some Guy.

Isuspect that the riders who might have slipped tomorrow on GC might have already have slipped today, but the time gaps should be more than today, and so the possibilities for the more expensive picks to move about relative to each other are greater.

Yellow pointsThomas's 2nd place at the bonus point is more telling that Dan Martin's 1st at the stage finish, and although none of us suffer from Dumoulin and Kragh Andersen losing so many places, there are lots of points gained by those they slipped past.

Over 200 points as a lead is impressive at this stage, but a lot of riders will have a lot of positional changes in GC yet. The three Thomas teams who could move upwards (Armchair, Bikeracer and AG) all move up 2 places, and are all back in the top 5. Bicycle Boy also improves his position in the top ten, as Leadbelly and Shalgo join the top ten. Googolplex is not only daily top scorer by both methods: he also has a huge 18 place jump.

StandingsI think the GC standings I used for the stage 6 update must have been published before Dumoulin's 20 second penalty was applied, so teams with Roglic and Nibali have a 6 point bonus in these standings not accounted for in the daily points above.

I drop a couple of places off the podium, and AG drops 5 in the top ten: Total Package and Ratta Kuningas get 6 place rises.

Degenkolb has been quietly collecting minor points on several stages, and giving some value to the teams that picked him. Groenewegen might yet prove a better investment than the rather cheaper Gaviria as an expensive sprint option, especially if the latter continues to get relegated.

The drop of Alaphilippe hurts no team, but gives a sizeable GC point boost to many. Dan Martin's fall is also, more modestly, good for others, but there are some teams that pay for that. Again, there are minor changes in the other classifications that contribute to today's gains and losses.

A couple of wins for Groenewegen list BikeRacer to be the closest challenger to Semir's dominance, and in the top 10 Josedin and AG head in the right direction, while Rote Laterne joins the party. Ratta Kuningas is the fastest riser (10 places) on his own today, having shared the honour yesterday.

StandingsKoronin and NAS have been picking up a few points from Degenkolb over the week, and got the big points today to add to those they already had from Gaviria. The highest positioned other scorer today is Search in 15th.1 Koronin 4322 NorthAmericanScum 3853 Comodoro 3664 BicycleBoy 3605 Googolplex 3576 Bminchow 3496 Leadbelly 3498 Shalgo 3469 Gotland 34410 TotalPackage 306

Yellow points

All but 9 teams (Amis Velo, Evans is the Best, Fauniera, GP Blanco, Koronin, Postmanhat, RattaKuningas, Sporting Nonsense, Yellow Knight) have effectively seen 21% of their budget sitting in tears on a kerb 10km from Arras.

Against most expectations, it was the riders who didn't really have much concern about their GC position that lost places today, so most of the important picks in the game (other than Porte, obviously) actually gained prospective points. Van Garderen and Uran dropping down the classification gifts points galore, but none of our teams were penalised by that.

Koronin and Ratta Kuningas enter the top ten on jumps of 10 and 8 places respectively, and other than the imperious Semir everyone in this mornings top ten drops places. Koronin's jump is exceeded by Fauniera (11 places), SportingNonsense (14), GPBlanco (15) and by Postmanhat, with an amazing 27 place vault.

I might find time for some stats tomorrow, but current tables are of course before they have even seen anything more than a small hill, so everything still to play for, even for the 80% of us who have lost one of our key riders.

We now have 2 front-runners rather than one, but with very different tactics, while Search moves onto the podium behind them. Postmanhat and NAS were in the first two places outside the top ten, know they are in it. GPBlanco's jump of 14 places is the best of the day.

Standings1 Koronin 4822 NorthAmericanScum 4373 Comodoro 3824 BicycleBoy 3755 Googolplex 3746 SemirS 3717 Bminchow 3668 Leadbelly 3659 Gotland 3629 Shalgo 362Semir is the only Thomas team to barge into the ten: all the others bar the top 2 at least have Dan Martin.

Yellow points

So those who look like they will be top ten at the end of the race get themselves into the serious GC positions, and those who won't vacate those positions with a big loss of points.Cavendish and Kittel represent a modestly expensive loss of any future points for a large number of teams, and an significantly priced loss for a smaller group respectively.

So much for my suggestion yesterday that Koronin had joined Semir in a breakaway pair: he dropped 16 places today. The 4 Thomas teams occupy the 4 top places, with those of us in 2nd to 4th having risen by 6,2 and 8 places respectively; GPBlanco, Fauniera and Carlo Algatrensig follow AG into the top ten with even bigger jumps, but they are all in the shade of 20 place jumps for Los Brolin and Ruvu75.

Geraint Thomas teams now in 2nd, 4th and 5th, probably with a few more yellow jersey bonuses to come, but Degenkolb (AG, Koronin, NAS and 2 other teams) is about as good a sprinter as anyone still in the game (Laporte and Arndt are on one team each, Guarnieri (if we have really looking that far down the list of sprinters) is on 6)

Yellow pointsAfter the huge shake-up yesterday, there wasn't much left to filter today, but a couple of notable position swaps and the downward drift of Caruso, Yates, Pozzovivo and Pauwels gift some points. Otherwise non-finishing sprinters losing their putative green jersey and finisher points are the main impact of the day.

StandingsWell, I though someone might dislodge Semir eventually, but I didn't expect that...The Thomas teams pull out a bit of a gap on the rest of the field, but Froome may have it in him to remove 150 points from their tallies when SDB gives the command. Evans is the Best and Laarsland appear in the top ten, EitB with the daily best 12 place hop.